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I want to.
Open today's podcast, the last of twenty twenty five, the last of the twenty twenty five season, the last of the first season of the Mark Belling Podcast with one of those stories I talk all the time going back through my radio career and doing the podcast. The topics that I think are the best ones to do are the ones that in and of themselves are interesting.
But they explain all sorts of other.
Things beyond the specific topic itself. We now have the ability to do a side by side comparison of what happens when you ban cell phones and schools. First of all, some schools do and some schools don't, so you can compare that. But secondly, many of the schools that have banned cell phones had not banned them prior to this.
You can compare that against that. Almost everyone will know what the result was before I even tell you everything has improved in the schools that ban cell phones in the classroom.
Now that begs a question and we're going to dive.
Into that as we dive into today's podcast. Have you ever been offered an add on option for premium or white glove service? U Line provides only one type of service, the best from knowledgeable customer service available twenty four to seven three sixty five to keeping every product in stock
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This story appears, and it is Wall Street Journal.
New evidence shows that bans on phones in classrooms work well. Again, no kidding, but let's dive into and by the way, you can find that with the Wall Street Journal. We always hesitate to link those pieces up because sometimes they end up behind a paywall. Every now and then they'll give you free stories out there for free. But if you want to find it, it is on the Wall Street Journal, online, WSJ, dot comm or and the prededition. I don't want to share some paragraphs from the story
written by Julie Jargon. A large urban district in Florida saw an increase in student test scores. A smaller school district in rural California experienced a dramatic decline in student behavioral problems. The reason for both the absence of smartphones in the classroom. Early data on the effects of school of phone bands confirm what teachers and administrators have long suspected that phones in the classrooms were the primary culprit behind bad behavior and low engagement.
Quote.
When you have two hundred and sixty seven incidents of threats and physical injury in the first ten weeks of a school year, that's a problem, said April Moore, superintendent of the Sierra Sans Unified School District near California's Mojave Desert, of last year's disciplinary problems, students were using their phones
to plan bathroom vaping meetups, gossip sessions, and fights. When behaviors escalate in the invisible space, we can't prevent them or react as fast, said More, who presides over a district of about five thousand students. Since district wide ban on cell phone use during instructional class time went into effect this fall, student behavior as time around, and they go into some of the numbers, and the story goes on and lays out all sorts of other anecdotes did.
As I say, as somebody who's not involved in running a school, it's just the most obvious thing, the idea of the kids right sitting there during school with their cellph instance, says, well, some of them can't use them during class. Okay, you can say that they're using them during class. To once again quote Francis McDorman from Fargo, well, how do you know these kids are pretty good at
concealing the fact that they're using them. Secondly, even if they're only using them during the breaks they can cause all, there's just zero upside for it.
Furthermore, we also know that there's no need for.
It, given the fact that just about every student in the history of students until about fifteen to twenty years ago didn't have a Snell phone with them in the classroom because they didn't exhaust. The point though in bringing this up is I think every school in America knows that banning them is a good idea, and now some have done so to one extent or another. As I say, some you're required to turn the phone in at the beginning of the day and you don't get it to
the end of the day. Others the kids can only use them during lunch, and so on their varying degrees of the kinds of bands.
That you have.
I think everybody knows the bands are a good idea, but the fact that not all schools ban them indicates just how much we've lost any type of common sense in anything the government runs at all. If banning cell phones is a good idea, why haven't we banned them everywhere? And the answer is because sometimes parents object, sometimes students raise a ruckus about it. And the third one of
the story addresses this. One of the downsides of banning them is if you find a student is violating the ban, they're terrified of what to do with them.
List. Man, you've got a kid who just he's got he's gonna go.
He has his phone and he's just gonna bring it in every day despite them, What are you gonna expel him for that?
Well, they don't have.
The willingness to do it, so they would just assume look the other way and not address it. The whole area of cell phones, I just think as smartphones is really the better term. And I think that this is in direct proportion to your age people have become. It's almost like they're mortified if they don't have them. You watch some of the YouTube videos of police arresting people, the thing that they freak out that most about is
losing their cell phone. No, maybe maybe they're sometimes concerned that there's damning information on there.
They're terrified if they can't have it. They can't.
Paul said, if his wife forgets it, it's like the end of the world. My own My own end of the world is only if I think I've lost it. Now that actually is the end of the world. But say, knowing that you've forgotten it, I actually needed here at work because we can't log into our computer system without having the authenticator in place, so I would need it to do that. But another reason that I bring it.
But I think it has a greater impact on kids because having the phone with them twenty four to seven is the only life that they know. But if they have them, they're going to use them. So to me, the takeaway from this is and it's it's like everything else, you can't argue anymore that they don't There isn't a benefit in banning the phones. Yet there are some districts that still don't do it. In some cases, the parents.
Are the problem.
They want to text their kids all day in school. There are others that say that, well, I want to keep track of what's going on. It's all crap. Your daughters are pushing thirty now, almost, aren't they. So, I mean, the smartphones were around when they were in school, but the smartphones just weren't as smart. But like, texting came in before browsing access and all of that.
But were they.
Allowed when they were still in school to have the So I mean it kind of was your banned and then they became ubiquitous and they were allowed and now it's a.
Mish mash all over the place.
As the story discusses, I want to move now to another story. In fact, I have companion stories that I'm going to put together and make a point both in and of themselves are interested. This story is reported on Fox six. It has to do with a seventeen year old who she was at a bar in a parking lot. It's unclear if she was ever in the bar. A security guard attempted to stop her from driving because she was drunk. She gets in the car and drives, and
what do you think she does? She hits the security guard you just talk about somebody doing the right thing and getting burned for it instead of looking the other way and letting her go off and do whatever it is that she is.
She gets hit, Let me coo.
From the Fox six story, a seventeen year old Milwaukee girl is facing multiple felony charges. Prosecutors say she drove intoxic kid, struck a security guard, and fled the scene outside a Northwest Side bar. What we know, here's what we know. The accused is Juliette Perez. She's in charge of the following injury by intoxicated use of a vehicle causing great bodily harm, knowingly operating a motor vehicle without valid license, causing great bodily harm, hit and run, resolving
a great bodily arm. The incident oft happened he on one fifty am Saturday, December twenty seventh, So this would have been this past Friday night turning into Saturday morning at the Prime Social Lounge. It's seventy sixth in Good Hope, where Milwaukee Police were conducting tavern patrol.
Now that's key.
The police were on the seat. Now, I don't know anything about this club, but chances are draws a very large crowd and maybe a crowd that's bordering on underage, and they're at the scene of this bar closing, and one fifty is approaching closing times throughout the the scene of the bar doing that. So there's all the kinds of things that would happen. You have people dispersing from a large crowd and police are already on the scene.
According to the complaint, officers say they saw a security guard and by the way, sometimes there's video of these things. In this case, cops actually saw it. Saw a security guard speaking with the driver of a blue sedan when a commotion broke out. Two security guards were then seen lying on the ground in the parking lot as the vehicle drove away. Police stopped the car a short distance away and found three occupants inside, none of whom were
in the driver's seat. Say, this tells me that they're street wise. Amazing none of them are in the driver's seat. Now, if this was one of musk cars, maybe you could claim that it was autonomous. By the way, you know that that's what's gonna happen is these people are gonna when people do hit and runs, they're gonna claim the car did the hitting and the car just kept on with They were claiming it all anyway, none of we're in the driver set, which means whoever the driver was scurried
and got in the back seat. They were able to identify that Perez was identified as one of the rear seat passengers. Officers say she was unbuckled, sitting on a child's car seat. I would probably indicate that she scrambled for the first place that she could fight, and she's sitting out a car seat, had slurred speech, was unable to maintain balance without assistance. She initially refused to identify herself and later attempted to leave the traffic stop before
being detained purd the complaint. Investigators say one of the security guards to Whole police he was struck by the st anne while trying to stop the driver from leaving because she appeared too intoxicated to drive. Surveillance video from the bar allegedly shows Perez entering the driver's seat of the sedan before it drives off.
All right, so you have.
A by the way the story goes on, They found numerous empty bottles and cans and so on inside the vehicle. One of the things that happens at a lot of these clubs that attract a younger crowd is the people who can't come in will hang around in the parking lot and drink in the cars. There also, one of the problems that you see with regard to a lot of these bars, where they have heavy security presents and metal detectors and so on, doesn't do anything about the guns.
That are in the cars. I don't know if there were.
Guns in this car, but there's a problem that the bars simply can't control what's happening in the vehicle that is outside the bar. And again I don't know if she ever got inside the bar or not. And she's way under the age. She's seventeen years old.
Now update on.
The story, and this is where I wan to tie it. End of the second story. She's facing, as I said, three felonies. She doesn't have a driver's license, she was drunk, way under age. Then she ran into him badly injured a security guard who was trying to stop her from driving away. Two thousand dollars cash bond, Milwaukee County, the Commissioner's Burry Phillips, two grand I don't know anything about her family situation, boyfriends and so on. Two grand is
usually something that most people can dredge up. She gets out, what are the chances that she's not right back drinking and driving again?
Two grand? She could have killed him.
Now this story it's some Wakershaw County. A few days ago, the Wakershaw County Courthouse received a telephone threat that the courthouse was going to be shot up. Now, as I've explained any number of times with cases like this, almost never are these threats real. When somebody does go into a public building and shoot it up, which sadly happens now all the time, they don't usually announce in advance that they're going to do it.
Why would you do that.
If you intend to go to a building and shoot it up, you're going to try to get into the building before anybody knows that you're there so you can shoot it up. So there's every reason to believe that the guy was bluffing. However, given that so many people are now so many cases that we have of public shootings like this, they can't take it as cavalierly as
I would take it in the past. I mean, even when I was a kid, you'd have bomb threats and you know, just you're yawn because there's never a bomb. You can't yawn anymore. Let me quote from the report. It's again a five to six report. A seventeen year old Milwaukee team is charged with allegedly calling in shooting threats to the Walkershaw County Courthouse, prompting a lockout. He did have a pending case in Walkershaw County, not surprisingly
in the court. A seventeen year old Milwaukee is facing felony charges after authority say he called in shooting threats to the Walkershaw County Courthouse, prompting a large scale law enforcement response and a lockdown of the county comm According to the Wakashaw County Sheriff's Department, just after six thirty pm Friday, again another story from last Friday, the Wakershaw Kuntie Communication Center received a call from a person claiming he was outside the courthouse with a gun. The County
Justice Center was immediately placed on lockdown. Now, fortunately, six thirty pm, My guess is that all the courts and the offices were shut down for the day. Plus it's the day after Christmas. Thankfully, this wasn't like two o'clock on a weekday afternoon when zillions of people in there. Continuing investigators say the caller allowed them to hear what sounded like gunfire in the background. So the guy's making the threats now it starts to shoot off the gun,
so it sounds like there's a shooting there. In other words, the threat is going to be taken even more seriously because now you're actually hearing somewhere there's gunfire. Well, the gunshots later turned out not to be real. He apparently had an audio track. The response was nine on one. Calls were released Tuesday, December thirtieth. That's yesterday, and I'll clean it up a little bit, but these are among the things that he said. I'll shove that great draco
down your effing mouth and blow your head off. Don't mike my ass come in there and shoot y'all. I'm outside the courthouse. Pull up to my crib. See what's going to happen. I'm gonna shoot you all. Investigators were able to identify the caller as Cameron, Gats and Staples in the nearly twenty minute nine to eleven recording. Five six has obtained the recording.
You could find it.
Another side authority said The Milwaukee address was Gaston Staples's group home, a location police had responded to before. Milwaukee County prosecutors say the teenager got into an argument with a caretaker there in September. Police say Gaston Staples became aggressive and hit a security guard in the eye at an officer in the face. The story goes on, So now in this case, well, the guy caused the ruckus. There are separate charges in Milwaukee County for that because
the group home was there. I'm dealing now only with the Wakashaw County charge. He didn't actually do anything, as opposed to the case of the seventeen year old. By the way, they're both seventeen. The seventeen year old who while drunk ran over a security guard who was trying to stop her from driving because he was concerned that she was too drunk. That seventeen year old only got a two thousand dollars bond. This guy in Waukeshaw County
Circuit Court has a five thousand dollars cash bond. I am often very critical of the Waukashaw County Court commissioners. In this case, I want to praise the court commissioner who are coming up with a proper bond. Daniel Week, I think of the two, certainly, the Milwaukee County case is the more serious. Both are serious, they're both felties
with The Milwaukee County case is more serious. A security guard who's all banged up, beaten, badly hurt as a result of being hit by a drunk drive ever fleeing the sea and who shouldn't have been drawnk to have been driving, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, as opposed to the other, I've got another set of candem stories. They have one thing in common, the controversy over what stuff goes where.
The first.
This is a proposal in New Berlin. Many of you have heard of the Milwaukee Rescue Mission. It's a homeless shelter and more. It's faith based and they have very strict rules. It's located at nineteenth and Wells. Back in the early dages, the days of WYS and we were at the WIS and TV building. It was kitty cornered from us. The Rescue Mission is a large facility and is highly respected in Milwaukee. They run that place as well as it could possibly.
Be run run.
They have numerous rules no booze, no this, no that curfew. You got to be in by a certain time, you don't come in. They don't tolerate any craft segregation on the basis of your gender, to avoid any kind of it's a class operation, and they provide services obviously for people who a are homeless or have just gotten so screwed up that because of drugs or alcohol or whatever that they got nowhere to go. What they can't do
Harvard is use while they're there. The Rescue Mission wants to open kind of a satellite complex in New Berlin. It would not be the same as the Rescue Mission in Milwaukee. What it would be is long term housing for people that are essentially in recovery. The location is for those of you who don't know the area, I'll do my best to describe it, but Moorland Road is just a main thoroughfare on Wakashaw County and it runs
north and south all the way to Brookfield. This is in the area well south on Moreland Road, where it is near Interstate forty three.
It's a huge interchange. Even you know that interchange.
I think if you're to have a facility like this anywhere, it's ideal because it's a mostly commercial area. I'm not saying there's no residential nearby, but there's like lots of big box stores, fast food restaurants and so on. That's where the Rescue Mission wants to build this satellite facility, which, as I say, is residential. It's not a lockdown facility, just like the Rescue Mission in Milwaukee is not lockdown.
They lock you out, you can't come in after a certain point, but you can come and go at the Rescue Mission. Well, this would be a residential, but it's for people that are in recovery, and they would probably offer the same kinds of services that they offer in Milwaukee. Help you get off of booze and help you get off of drugs and so on. That's what it is.
Preliminary approval has been given to this in New Berlin, but a number of residents believe that this thing is being rammed through and they don't like the notion of a large residential complex coming in to this area. I've
seen the artist renderings. It looks exactly like all any of these other kind of generic treatment centers or even medical buildings that have housing and so on, and it would seem to me that if you're going to put it anywhere in the suburbs, it's about a perfect location because it's in it's not stuck in the middle of a residential area. It's not a group woman, it's big, but it's in an area where there's just a lot
of people. In general, some of the residents are expressing concern. Now, the residents have a right to offer the input to their community. I want to offer some context on this.
I do believe.
That it is not correct, not just Milwaukee, but throughout all of urban America that every shelter, halfway house, and so on be stuck in central of cities. If for no other reason, then a huge portion of the population didn't emerge from those neighborhoods. The people who get screwed up on alcohol and some one are as likely to come from downtown Milwaukee as they are from Muskego or
Brookfield alreadywhere else. In addition to that, if you have people that are in a legitimate recovery facility that are trying to provide proper services here, why do they all have to live in crappy neighborhoods. If there's an outfit that's out there raising private funds in order to provide services with compassion. They should be given the benefit of
the doubt on locating them anywhere. Again, the argument I've made with regard to the data centers is we have to get these data centers, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't give consideration to where the data centers are located.
And my criticism is.
Entirely of Evers on this he's provided and trying to put them here. The more they have to obviously have access to transportation because zillions of people are going to work there, but you want to put them kind of on the peripheries of towns and maybe near the freeway or something or another, or near a more industrial area
and away from et cetera. I get the concern of the residence of New Berlin because once you start putting in big apartment complexes in any community, and if there's treatment facilities associated, it can cause deterioration of the neighborhood. I will tell you, however, that when we were over at nineteenth and Wells in Milwaukee, which is a neighborhood that was kind of it's on the it's not it's on the edge of the inner city. It's on the edge of market. It's kind of the crossroads of everything
over there. You could not have had a better neighbor than the Rescue Mission because they don't tolerate any crap from the people there. But it's an interesting diversity that they're going to have in Some of the residents don't believe that the community should be ramroding it through. Next there's another land used controversy that I think is quite interesting and appropriate. We're recording this podcast and releasing it.
On New Year's Eve.
Traditionally, v spot in Milwaukee on New Year's Eve for decades was Victor's, which closed last year on New Year's Eve. It was their last night after being in continuous operation at that location since nineteen sixty four, and years earlier at another site.
It's been closed.
The family had disputes, they sold the property, they sold, and there's been nothing in there for a year. For those of you who don't know the area, it's been on the same location in North Van burenu Straeted Milwaukee since nineteen sixty four. Over the last several years, as many of you know, there has been a housing boom in downtown Milwaukee. The Lower east Side and the third ward. This place would be where kind of downtown on the
Lower east Side come to together. And over the many years, there was never there's always there are always apartment rental houses behind Victors. But since all of this, a brand new high rise apartment building is opened across the street. Two blocks down is the Ascent, a very high end apartment complex. Another blockdown is the seven to seventy seven, which is a high rise apartment complex, extremely high end
that Northwestern developed. There is someone who has put in an application to open a bar at the old Victor's site, and there is overwhelming opposition from the neighborhood. There's going to be a hearing in front of the Milwaukee Common Council's Liquor License Committee on January sixth. Now I pick up on this because I'm from the area and you're
just hearing it. I don't live that close to where the Victor's property was, but I live close enough that I hear from all of the people that are involved in this, and it's become a big to do and down to Milwaukee. The opponents are all the people that you would figure. First of all, the apartment building across the Street, which is new Land Enterprise. That's the Gakman
family and their partner, Whickman. They're obviously opposed. They probably enjoy not having a bar that's open until two o'clock in the morning five nights a week or whatever it was. Victors used to be seven nights a week across the street from them. They're opposed, as are the majority of the residents who live there being opposed because they don't want to have all the commotion that occurs at the bar.
In addition to that, there's a high school, Saint John and Tino, which is a black and a half away.
They're opposed.
Katz, who owns lots of the smaller apartment house metals all around the area.
He's opposed.
Pretty Much everybody in the vicinity is opposed. The aldermen from the district, Bob Bauman is opposed, and Bob Bauman is opposed because every one of his constituents is opposed.
Here's the thing. For six decades there's.
Been a bar operating on that location. It's not like the people would not be used to a bar. And in the case of the old Victors, an extremely popular bar that had a huge late night crowd back in the old days, a huge late night crowd, damn near every night of the wake. The aldermen from the district, Bob Bauman, who opposes it, said yeah, but that Victor's
is closed. Of course, Victors had the benefit of the doubt and being able to continue to operate there because they were there before almost all these new people came in. But now you've had a building that's empty. This is a brand new way application to put something in at a brand new site, from a brand new ownership group, etc.
They start from square.
One and they don't get a benefit of the doubt.
The city coach is going to have to decide what to do here now.
I think one of the things that you consider is the track record of the operator. And it's one of those deals where somebody owns the building, somebody else is leasing, and the leasing hires a manager and the manager apparently runs a bar on the south side where there's been a little bit of incident stuff and so on. I can tell you, as somebody who's not unfamiliar with that place, which is generally bars.
And so on.
Everything has gotten worse over the years, and you see it on Water Street and shootings almost never occurred in the past.
Shooters occur all the time.
Now there's nothing bars can do about it, because, as I say, almost all of them make sure that you can't bring guns in. But what do you do about the parking lots? And then as we see on Water Street, this new thing, and it's just it's the strangest thing for me, and I can't relate because when I was a kid, the drinking age is eighteen. I asked Paul this all the time because I always forget. Was it
eighteen when you were a kid. Yes, it turned twenty one right after them, so we both experienced, well, okay, you're eighteen, you can go into a bar, which we could do. But the thing now is for people under twenty one who can't get into the bar, they go and hang around outside the bar. It's a huge issue on Water Street. It's huge to a lot of these places. They're in the cars doing the pot in the form
of edibles. They usually don't smoke because the cops are patrolling out there, or they're drinking like crazy in the bar and maybe somebody's designated. The police do what they can to hang around these places. But in Milwaukee, the cops can't be around all the bars all the time. Now, the people that are applying for the license there application says Vix and van Bura on a takeoff on the old victor's name, and they spill Vix like the cough dur Bicks, so they want to take advantage of the
old name. They say that they're going to do a sports bar, but everybody assumes that the place is going to be a late night club that has a hip hop component to it, late at night, et cetera, because how else can you make money late at night other than operating that My guess is that the alderman from the district and the residents would like to have a restaurant that opens at nine o'clock that closes at nine or ten at night, which that whole area surrounded by
and doesn't have the same issue. But one of the things the city we'll have to address is that we're going to discriminate against these new potential operators by telling them that they can't operate a business at a site
that somebody else did for sixty years. Or are you going to tell the neighbors who are moving into a community one of the only areas of Milwaukee where there's been residential growth, that we're gonna let somebody with no track record come in and make your lives miserable every night. Two very different land used decisions. In both cases, the municipality will have to make a decision. I have no
opinion on either. Just share the story, all right now, this story I'm I'm gonna say this is unprecedented, but it's close. Paul and I are in the radio business. I of course now I'm a podcast through but I still work for a company that is in the radio business, and I do my show from a radio studio.
Are you used to doing?
Yeah, Paul's doing still doing and will continue to do radio programs with the weekend shows that here on WISI.
Both of us have been in radio our entire lives.
Everyone knows that radio is one of the industries that is contracting for the same reason that everything else that's been contracting because of technology. Streaming and all of the podcasting which I now do are competing with radio. And radio companies have largely responded to this by cutting spending, having fewer personnel, fewer on air people, etc. This is confronting a number of industries. There's something happening in the story that I'm mentioning here. I'm not going to say
it never happens. What I will say is it almost never happens in an area of any size. I don't even think that it's happened in Milwaukee. We have a case in the Fox Valley station that's going to shut down. In other words, not of anything. Now Milwaukee, we have several stations. They operate, but they're just running syndicated programming twenty four hours a day, or they might be running
infomercials twenty four hours a day. And when those properties have been sold, they don't sell for what they did in the past. But there's always a value to it because there's so many signals above. In this case, though, they're just shutting down, which is very weird, and I don't know if it's a sign of the times or if they're up to something. There is reason to think they're up to something because of who owns the company. First of all, I'll tell you that the radio station
is WNAM Nina Manasha. Are you familiar with that station, Paul? That was at one time just a giant, particularly before FM radio came in. I'm up from the year in the Fox Valley and WNAM was a big time radio station. Back in the sixties, they were still playing the easy listening music when people like me were listening to top forty stations and so on, and then in the seventies they switched to.
Rock and roll.
But as rock and roll listeners went over to FM, they were basically just trying to survive ever since playing easy listening. They didn't go to talk, which most AM stations did and so on. But back in the day, this was a huge station and a lot of people who went on to become big deals worked there. I think the most famous. He only worked there for a few months, but I was in high school. Who was there? I remember listening to him and the wow, this guy's
going He was only there for six months. He went on to become a huge DJ at America. You know Don Geronimo knows the name. He became a talk show host and was always on that same list the top one hundred in the country that I was as another guy that has an almost identical name, but it's mostly a rock and roll DJ before talk shows. He worked at that station when he was sixteen. I still remember here it was when that song from Greece was on the top forty. You're the one that I want. Remember that.
Remember who did it? Yeah, that's right, that's who did it. Well, anyway, he played it and he said, there's that awful song from Greece by Olivia Newton, John and John Revolting. I mean I laughed out loud because I had given what year he worked there. I had to still be in high school and I heard the thing. Well, a lot of people came to that station, and it was a big deal for anyway, Fox Eary is a major, pretty
big market. It's the second largest market in Wisconsin for radio and television, Madison's third because the Fox really covers Green Bay all the way down to Ashkash and some even Defindale. I ended a pretty good signal on the AM dial, but they'd been running a format that doesn't have any listeners. Who wants to listen to easy listening music on AM radio. They were the voice of the
Brewers Farm Team, the Wisconsin Cumber Rattlers. What's interesting, though, is by just turning it off, I mean even if you have almost we have a couple of stations in our building that have very small listenership, but you can still put something on and do something off of it or sell it to somebody. Often they'll sell them and they'll become a religious station. I don't know if they couldn't sell it, or if they're turning it off and they have it for sale to somebody else, but they're
just shutting it down as of today. Now here's why I'm intrigued, aside from just is this what now radio is gonna come? That stations are now on AMDAL if they have low listenership or now not even you can't even sell them, I don't know. The company involved is Cumulus, which is the second largest radio company in America, the one that WYSN, where I used to work, iHeart.
Is the largest.
Cumulus is owned by George Soros. When Soros took over Cumulus, I wondered what he was going to be doing with the number of those stations. Now in Soros as a hedge fund manage operator and so on, they tend to slash and cut, but radio is seeing slashing and cutting from everyone involved. But in this case, they're just turning the damn thing off. And I don't know if that's where all of radio is going. But boy, usually even if you have a minuscule audience, once you already have
the station, the costs of operating are rather limited. And the state they own several other stations that run in that same building, so you're just running the utilities of keeping the transmit around. Otherwise, you can do a radio station and almost have it operate twenty four to seven by machine. But even in smaller communities they've got some of them. But as I say, this isn't like a tiny station in the middle of nowhere. It is a station that's got lots of FM stations and so on.
My guess is they probably try to sell it, and maybe they've just decided that why pay anything anybody, any salaries or any costs whatsoever. But that and now this story big deal coming up in Milwaukee this weekend. As how many people don't know that the Olympics are coming up in a month and a half twenty five percent tone.
Well they are.
That means the American teams are being selected right now. They call them the trials. The American Olympic Trials for speed skating are this weekend and they're at the Petit in and of itself. That's interret I've got a story here that I think they're approaching sellout for a lot of the sessions of this, But I mean, it's just it's a first of all, the Olympic Trials are the biggest thing that you have other than the Olympics. It's the championships for the United States of America because it
determines the Olympic game. But secondly, the best speed skater in the world and maybe the best, potentially the best speed skater since Eric Heiden forty five years ago, is Jordan Stoles, who's from our own area and he competes in everything. He's long track, not short track. This is not the short track speed skating you've seen some of that that the really really tiny ranks. Long track is
the final trials that are going to be here. So it's going to be an opportunity for Jordan's Stoles from Kewaskam to star out, a chance for people to see them that you actually have Olympic trials that a determined the American Olympic team in a major sport going on this weekend.
All right, the.
Plan for today's program, We're going to do our football preview next, and then that's not normally that's the end of our program. Then we're going to do a segment after this one, so stick through what in which we will allow Paul to address the fact that he's.
I still what if I fired you right now? See what he would be able to do a farewell.
You?
Paul said that would post the podcast. Yeah, that's the problem with firing him. First of all, there's nobody in our building today. I don't even know if it's a holiday.
Is it a holiday or maybe.
We're like that w one a m and then just turned everything off and I.
Don't even know.
Yeah, I can't fire Paul because he's got to post the podcast. If I could fire him, I suppose after he post the podcast, but he wouldn't be working for the show anymore. So we're going to do that at segment three. So football and the coming up next on the Markepelling Podcast. This is the Mark Belling Podcast. We're
going to do things a little bit out of sync today. Normally, the final segment of the program is our weekly football preview and football picks, but we're doing in a segment two A because I want to use the final segment two talk about Paul's long, long time coming departure from the program, in the future of the podcast and so on.
So we'll do that at the end.
Right now, I'm joined by Mike Blat of American Sports Analysts in Madison as we wrap up the twenty twenty five season. First of all, we're on a recording this on a Wednesday. Football is kicking in right and left. There's a lot of games, in fact going on today. All of the college football playoff games go Wednesday night or Thursday. Some of you may be hearing the podcast
after they've already been played. Anyway, Mike, is there anything you'd like to share about how ASA is going to be handling all this?
Yeah.
Sure, Go to our website, wins dot com right on the front page and get the rest of our season, both college and NFL for ninety nine bucks. That's the rest of our bowl games. Well, it looks like we'll have a couple of bowl games on Thursday, and then moving forward we'll have some and then you know, last week in the NFL and our playoffs, we've been doing
really well. We won seven of the last eight top games in college and we've swept the board in the NFL two of the last three weekends, so we're rolling right now. And then get everything for ninety nine through the Super Bowl.
And has that super Bowl record Sage str I mean, you had some unbelievable super Bowl record forever and ever and ever, and I don't remember anymore if that got all screwed up or is that still a strong thing.
It's still strong. We won last year. I don't have it off the top of my head, but it's a really strong record in the super Bowl.
So I mean, you get the Super Bowl included for doing all of that. All right, let's get to this weekend. First of all, more college football gets more attention for a lot of reasons, including the college semifinal games are going on. There are four of them, and I'm going to sure you pick out two of them. And again I want to remind the audience that we're recording this on Wednesday, so those of you who listen after Wednesday or Thursday or Friday, some of these games might already be played.
Of the four.
Games that we chose, I wanted to cherry pick out and talk about the two that I guess I find most interesting. The first is Alabama in Indiana, We've talked about Indiana a lot this year because there are emergence from awful to then really good to this year dominant and maybe the best team in America. Has been a compelling story that not a lot of people have seen coming. They play Alabama. Indiana's the number one seed in the whole thing, so of course they're pretty hefty favorites over Alabama.
Alabama is no longer the Alabama of Nick Saban, It's the Alabama of Kailin de boor Indiana is still I think it still has skeptics who aren't certain how good they are, even though I think they've proven everything that there is to prove. Alabama's come out of the SEC and has played a really brutal schedule and has a pretty good record.
What are your thoughts in this game?
Yeah, you've kind of hit it on the head as far as Indiana not always getting the respect they deserve, and I think it's because it's kind of a weird matchup. You've got a long term college powerhouse, Alabama against an Indiana team that's stunk just a few years ago. And Indiana's favored by a touchdown in this game, and a lot I've had a lot of people asking me, why is Indiana a whole touchdown against Alabama? Well, they're better. I mean, they're the better team this year, and it's
not really particularly that close. I think, you know, just to sidetrack a little bit, I think you can say Indiana, right is the turnaround Indiana's had is possibly the quickest and best in college football history.
I agree.
They were nine and twenty seven in the three years before Signetty came. Now they're twenty four and two with him, and their two losses were last year at Ohio State and at Notre Dame, who played for the national championship. That's the only two losses under him. Remarkable turnaround. Indiana is a better team, far better margins. If you look at you yards for play points per game, they're beating teams by thirty one points per game, Alabama by thirteen
points per game. It's a interesting matchup, but there's a reason that Indiana's favored by seven. One thing to watch here, it's supposed to rain. It's been raining all day in Pasadena's supposed to rain all day tomorrow, so the conditions could be a little bit sloppy tomorrow for that game.
Yeah, the game is in the Rose Bowl. The four games are all played in traditional ball games. In fact, four of the Big Ball games are this weekend, and they're all the ones for the National Championship quarter finals.
The other game that I want to talk about involves.
The Big Ten is all over this, but of course they are because there's nine hundred and fifty seven teams in the Big Ten. One of them is one of those newer Big Ten teams, Oregon. They play the closest thing we have to Indiana, and that's Texas Tech. Texas Tech has always been okay, and they've got a new coach. They hired a general manager who does all the recruiting. The school has a lot of big time oil money alumni, and they have a massive nil budget, and they've bought
a spectacular team. Oregon versus Texas Tech really good game. Texas Tech is one of those Texas schools that didn't leave to go to the SEC. They're in the Big Twelve. Oregon did not make the Big Ten Championship game. They're probably the third best team in the Big Ten, which is a pretty good statement given the fact that Ohio State and Indiana the only two better than them. This is the I think the closest to the points spread matchups.
Oregon is favored by two and a half points in the game, and I think this is the Orange Bowl in Miami.
Your thoughts on.
The game, Mic, Yes, the game's in Miami, and I think this is the best game of the week. Of the four. I think these two teams are evenly mashed. I really do that. You have to factor in the strength of schedule and try to balance the stats based on the strength of schedule. Texas Tech has a much weaker their strength of schedule sixty fifth compared to eleventh for Oregon. But you know, we said before, you can only play who's in front of you, and they you.
Know, Texas Tech twice had to play BYU, which I thought was a pretty good team this year, and they've pieceded them twice. So that tells me again, you can only beat who you played. They did take the loss to Arizona State, but they've been strowing consistently throughout the season and they never really hit much of a speed bump.
They didn't and they've won every game by at least twenty four points. And they beat the UYU twice and they won Utah with a really good team they beat They destroyed Utah on the road this year at Utah, so they've beaten the teams in front of them. Oregon's played one playoff team. Texas Tech hasn't played a playoff team. Oregon played one and lost by tenant home to Indiana. Their best wins are probably at Washington and at Iowa,
which are good wins, so comparable. These two teams are very comparable, but they're a lead on both sides of the ball. Texas Tech is top six nationally in total offense and total defense, and Oregon is top twelve. I'd argue, you know, this is an interesting staff here. I'd argue Tech Tech defense hasn't talked about enough. Their defense is elite, elite. They faced three top twenty five offenses this year and allowed eight points per game in those in those games.
Oregon has played also three top twenty five offenses, and they allowed thirty points per game in those games against James Madison, Indiana, and USC tex better on defense, Oregon's better on offense. It's going to be a fantastic game. I think this is by far.
The best game of the One interesting component the Texas Tech coaching staff is obviously very good, but very inexperienced. The head coach is an old guy, Joey Maguire, but he spent most of his career as a high school coach in the state of Texas. Their coordinators and everybody else and their staff are guys that he's plucked out,
and almost none of them have been in anything like this. Oregon, on the other hand, Dan Lanning ran the defense at Georgia for a number of years and his whole staff is filled with coaches that have been in big games and in big programs. I don't know if that comes into play or not you put a game pan together with the players that you have, but I do note that there's just a tremendous experience difference in coaching in big games that would favor Oregon. That being said, I
kind of think Texas Tech's going to win. Let's turn our attention to the NFL. I say this every year.
And I'm going to say it again.
The two most impossible weeks to figure out in the NFL are the week first week and the last week. And the last week is especially impossible because the overwhelming majority of games this weekend are meaningless and I don't even know. In fact, let's talk about that before we get to the one game that I do want to focus on, Mike. It kind of strikes me like a lot of the minor ball games where you look at the opt outs of who's going to play and who
isn't going to play. That's really what the last week of the NFL is going to be. Which teams are going to play starters, which ones are not, and so on. I think that this is just a brutal week to figure out anything in the NFL.
Yeah, I have to be really good comparison Mark as far as the opt outs in the bowl games in this last week in the NFL, very good comparison. I mean, it's you kind of have to focus on the last week. Focus on teams that are facing off that are eliminated because they're still playing all their starts, they're still playing for you know, then you at least know what's going on with those or teams that are fighting for the
playoffs or playoff spots right now. Other than that, you got to throw the rest of the rest of the games out here. Here's what we look for in the last two weeks of the season, and unfortunately, this week nothing falls into this situation. We look for teams that are eliminated from the playoffs against teams that have to win again that particular game, and we go against the teams that have to win. In fact, since nineteen ninety the teams that have to win those games are sixty
nine and one ten against the spread. So the teams that are eliminated and don't have to win cover almost sixty two percent of the time happened.
And you can see why that would be.
I mean, for the team that's been eliminated, this is their only playoff game, whereas the team that needs to win and there's no pressure on that team, where the team that needs to win has a lot of pressure, plus the lines are probably really inflated to the team that needs to win. But you're right, there are none of those situations this weekend. There are more games like green Bay and Minnesota where Minnesota is out and green Bay is locked in game has no impact on the
Packers whatsoever. Minnesota, Okay, it's the last game of the season. That's what The whole schedule is. A few games in which there's tremendous meaning and then a bunch of others in which they're eliminated. Teams are playing teams that have already been locked into the playoffs. But there's not one situation that, as Mike mentions, where a team has to
win to get into the playoffs. There are a couple of games where both teams have to win to get into the playoffs, like Pittsburgh and Baltimore, but none of the other The one game of the meaning that I think is the most fascinating, and it really does have importance because the number one seed in the NFC is at stake in this The loser is going to be a wildcard team, and the winner of the game is going to be the number one seed in the whole NFC, and that's the Seahawks and the forty nine Ers. What
a good game. The betting odds right now favor the Seahawks to win the Super Bowl. But this is as wide open a year as I think has ever existed. The Rams where everybody's Super Bowl team until they've now clunked a couple of times. Here the Rams are for certain now a wildcard team. The Seahawks and the forty nine Ers are playing for control of the West. Really good game, very tight point spread the games at San Francisco Stadium. The Seahawks are a little bit favored on
the road. Very good game, has a lot of meeting.
What do you think?
Yeah, first of all, how good is the NFC West? My gosh, the Rams are considered by a lot of people that they be the best team in the NFL, and they might be a sixth seed, right.
They're the third place team in that they might be the best team, as you said, in the in the whole league and the third best team in their own division, which is just perverse.
Yeah, And as you said, the winner of this is the number one seed in the NFC. The loser can be the five or the sixth seed. It's gonna be Seattle or the Rams as the five or six seed. And just a side note, you want to be the sixth seed. You want to be the five seed, not the sixth seed. Normally a lot of times it doesn't matter. But this year the five seed is going to play Carolina or Tampa Bay and the six gaed is going to have to go to Philadelphia Chicago. They're a big
difference in that. So if San Francisco wins this game, they're the number one seed. They went through. They never have to leave home the Super Bowls in their stadium this year, which is an interesting side note as well. Offense against defense in this game. We mentioned it last week. San Francisco has scored one hundred and twenty seven points in their last three games, forty two points per game, and since Perty came back they're six and zero. They're
averaging thirty six points per game. They're playing the second best defense in the NFL in the points per game situation, and Seattle only allowed twenty four points twice this season, So really interesting game. Seattle's been really good on the road. People don't realize there's seven and one on the road this year, with a two point loss at the Rams. Going back to their last eighteen games they won on the road, they've won sixteen of them. That's probably why
they're favorite here. They're the better team, the better defense, But man, San Francisco's offense is humming right now. This is going to be a fantastic game, best game of the year, possibly in the NFL.
Yeah, and boy, I think that the team that loses it hask the turnaround and play next week. They might be up against it because they're going to be playing a team that's had a chance this week to rest all of their starters and that whole thing, and they'll be on the road. So not only does winning the game give you the number one seed, losing the game puts you behind.
The eight ball.
All right, let's get to some point spread picks for this week and recapping the.
Picks of last week.
I managed to out by a half point a win in a wild game I took in the one of the college football ball games, Houston over LSU. I was laying two and a half and Houston won the game by three. Mike was actually right on the money. He took BYU a four point favorite over Georgia Tech, and
it ended up a four point win. In fairness to Mike, that line dropped a three and a half a lot of places that you would have gotten to win, and Paul didn't come close to tying anything, and all he this is we talked to I don't I think we talked about this game maybe in the context of Paul's pick. The Steelers played the Browns. It was a somewhat important game I think for Pittsburgh, and Cleveland beat him. Cleveland
beat him thirteen to six. Maybe it wasn't. I mean, even if Pittsburgh had lost, I think they still could have gotten into the playoffs by beating Baltimore this week, So maybe it wasn't important to them. But anyway, those are the picks for the week. None of us had a particularly good season, but I did clinch the season this twenty twenty five season championship. All right, so much
for the past. Let's get to this weekend. Lots of NFL games, many are just puzzlers, and quite a few college football games, both lesser balls and the four National Championship semi finals. And again, as we are recording this on Wednesday, some of you be listening anytime any of the games beginning that have not yet started. You're at one one pm Wednesday. Anything from that point forward through I guess the end of the weekend, the end the final game of the NFL.
Would be fair game for our picks.
Paul, you get to, uh, this is your last pick. I maybe we'll invite Paul back next season to uh to make picks, just to uh, just to put somebody into uh into the rummy position. Yeah, he's asking about the overrunner in the Seattle San Francisco.
Game, I mean, pages are all messed up.
Sure, forty nine and a half, and as Mike said, you know, San Francisco's scoring points like crazy, but the Seahawks defense is phenomenal, makes it really hard. The line in the Cowboys and Giants game, now that's one of those games that Mike talked about, is a good one to look at because both teams are knocked out, so you're not. The difference is is that the Giants, you know, have an incentive to lose as they try to get the best draft choice that they can get.
The Cowboys on.
The road are favored by three and a half over the Giants. I think there are a lot of teams that were really disappointing teams in the NFL this year, Kansas City and Detroit among them.
But Dallas has to be in that group.
Well, the Giants, I guess are in that group too. They certainly were even worse than people thought. Three and a half. The Cowboys favored. Yeah, he's gonna take Dallas. I think I believe Prescott's going to play and Dallas is playing at starters. It's a tough game because Dallas, I don't think that there's good internal dynamics on that team and all of that. The Giants are the kind of organization you can see them screwing up by winning a game that would help the overall franchise to lose.
But Dallas is the better team. I mean, in fact, they're the way better team than the Giants. And I'll put it to Mike because it's probably a game that you did look at because, as we stated, it is a game in which both teams are eliminated, so the motivational factor is even just playing for a win.
Yeah, and you know they played earlier this year and Dallas won an overtime at home by three points against the Giants. That was before Dark took over at quarterback. That's a hard game. I don't trust Dallas on the road as a favorite in this type of game. And as you said, the Giants are potentially potentially playing for the number one pick, and they them against the Raiders last week and they destroyed the Raiders.
Well, I mean the Raiders are there's a big controversy in the NBA with so many teams tanking.
The Raiders are Okay.
The Raiders, I think they I think that I honestly think they broke their kicker's leg just to make sure Crosby couldn't kick. I mean, now he says he's gonna have knee surgery, but he said he was able to play. They wouldn't let him play. The Raiders, that little Mark Davis operation cent ofvel. They're gonna do everything they can doos this weekend, So I don't think that the Giants can drop down and get them. But number one is just you know, in the NFL, the second pick is
an awfully good pick two and so on. So I don't think coaches and players try to lose, but there could be direction from management to try, well, we need to see this young guy here, and let's look at some backups on the O line and D line as are prepared for next year.
All of that stuff.
Yeah, I know, I agree one hundred percent. Players don't tank it. They're playing for contracts, they're playing for the next deal. And and the Giants, you know, they don't need a quarterback, so they don't need the one or the two picks. They've got Jackson Dart. So they played hard last week, and I guess they would hear this is a tough game. For that, I don't like this game at all as far as the side goes.
Okay, time to get a pick from Mike on a game that you do like. And by the way, I had to put.
Mike talks a lot about with regard to the college bowl games. You have to be watching right up to the last minute. And I'm calling it audible at the last minute because the game that I was in kent on picking for a week. I'm not going to pick on. But let's go to Mike and get his pick first.
Yeah, I'm gonna look at two. I'm gonna get two lines for two bowl games, both on Friday. All right, how about the Rice versus Texas State.
That's actually a game I looked at. Texas State is favored by a trillion points. It's see where it is right now? My last page. Yeah, so he said, I got my pages all out of sync. Here, sixteen and a half Texas State is faid over Rice. I think that's the widest margin of any of the bowl games.
Yeah, it definitely. I think it is as so far. And the other one is Navy against Cincinnati.
Now that's going to be my game, and that game seven Navy is favored over Cincinnati by seven. That's going to be the game.
That I pick.
That's going to be the game I take, too, And I'm taking Navy in that game.
You're taking Navy. Well, I'll just tell you right now, so am I. So we've got the exact same pick, Navy minus seven against Cincinnati. So Michael give his reasons that I'll give mine, and we both stumble out of the same game independent of one another. By the way,
before we get into that, I am curious. I don't know that you want to give away the picks that your service is offering, but could you give us a hint as to whether or not you were going to take Texas State or laying sixteen and a half or taking the underdog in that game?
Yeah, I was leaning Texas State in that game.
Yeah, I agree with that.
I think there's just a lot of factors going on, including the Rice team having to plan nobody a quarterback, Texas State's quarterback. Texas State scores a trillion points to play in everybody it could be the ugliest ball game, and Rice is one of those teams. They got in with a five and seven record, and this isn't like getting into the five and seven record in the Big Ten. They're getting in with a five and seven record and a lesser conference.
And so on.
But anyway, let's get to Navy and Cincinnati. We both like Navy. Mike, you give me your reasons, and I'm going to agree with every single one of them, because I want to hear all the reasons Navy winsor were a touchdown.
Okay, I'll keep it short so I don't steal everything that you've got. Possibly. So, first of all, Cincinnati quarterback out soors be one of the better quarterbacks.
In the backup.
He's barely played.
He's played, he's got three hundred career passing in his career passing yards, and he's going to split time with a freshman that's taken two snaps this year. So Cincinnati's kind of viewing this as a future type thing, I think for them, Let's face it, Navy showing up for the game, Army showed up for a similar situation. Army played against Yukon with a bunch of opt outs and
creamed Yukon in the bowl game. Service academies dating back to two thousand and three are nineteen and three against the spread.
They won all their bowl games. And by the way, Navy has won eight bowl games in a row and covered the ball.
And I like that they're coming off a loss against Army. I like that situation. And let's face and for Cincinnati, he's got a ton of opt outs on defense. You have to be completely focused in when playing a team like Army or Navy. They're ninety seventh against the run this year. I think it just sets up for Navy to pull away. And I like that it's you know, a lower spread at seven. I think they won by double digits.
No, Mike, you've never made a mistake and all the years you've been on so.
I've never had to correct you. Navy actually won that game by a point over Army.
They came out that's right, and that was about what right down to the end. The ball was right at the end zone when it happened. But I don't think it matters.
The Service Academies are great in ball games in part just the discipline of Service Academy members. They don't really let down for anything. Ever, Secondly, never an opt out for a Service Academy because the players. The only time a Service Academy player leaves as well as entire eligibility and service is up. I think there's a guy, that guy that transferred running back somewhere. I think but Arizona State or somewhere. They used to play at Army. But
otherwise the entire team is intact. Cincinnati has opt outs, the quarterback isn't playing, and Navy has a great I just love this guy.
His name is Horvath. He's a tremendous quarterback.
Navy had a really soft schedule when they were seven and zero, and they lost a couple of games and reality kicked in, but they finished really strongly. They have only two losses on the season. Cincinnati was in the Big twelve and had a pretty good season, but they lost their last three games down the stretch, and they didn't just lose him. Let me pull out this list here. This is Cincinnati's final three games of the season.
They lost.
Let's go back four games. They lost their last four games of the season. They got killed by ut Off forty five to fourteen. Then they lost at home to Arizona thirty to twenty four. They lost to BYU twenty six to fourteen, and then they went to TCU and lost forty five to twenty three. So you've got a rare case of ball team coming in here off of four losses, and three of them were real blowouts. And as I say, there's just more motivation with Navy. Now,
this line has moved all the way up. I think it opened at two or three and it's up to seven. But I think that Navy's going to cover it. Mike and I agree on that pick. Again, Mike and his company ASA offer your own service. You can check him out throughout the year in the website is ASA wins dot com. Hopefully will connect again next season.
Mike, Thanks Mark, I appreciate it. It's a pleasure.
Okay, Paul and I are going to give a rap on the twenty twenty five season and on Paul's producing ten. You're next on the Marked Belling podcast. This is the Mark Belling podcast. All right, A couple of big things to announce. This is the final podcast of the season. My podcast has a season. As we explained when we began the podcast. For those of you who didn't listen to my radio program, for the last couple of years, I've been on the same schedule as I Approach. I
was going to say, Approach senior citizen status. I mean, I don't consider myself a senior citizen, but by every metric, AARP lets you join when you're fifty. That's just a racket that they just trying to get at as many people to give their membership dues as possible. Yeah, well you're way over that level too. I mean, you're not over sixty fives.
You wouldn't think.
I mean, I'm just in that. My intention is to work as long as I can possibly do it, and I've made the decision that the way to do that is to do it about as much as I am now. So the hopefully permanent schedule for the podcast will be made in December, as was the schedule for my radio show prior to transitioning to the podcast this year. The first year of the podcast was beyond any expectation. We were somewhere between number twenty and thirty five just about
every week, and the entire iHeart national podcast system. Man, a lot of pretty famous people were lower than me, and I started with an audience that basically only knew them knew me from southeastern Wisconsin. It's been a tremendous success. So we're going to be back on May first, same as we did last year. I will be posting more frequently on X under Mark Belling Show. It's also possible that we'll do a couple of special podcasts somewhere in between.
I don't know anything schedule, but for instance, if something happens, we might do a short nine minute podcast or maybe an hour, and if you're a subscriber to the podcast now, you'll get a notification that one is up, and I'll post an X that we do one. So I'm not going to say we're doing that for sure, but maybe we will, maybe we won't. So this is the final podcast of twenty twenty five, and the next one is going to be released on May first, and we'll revert
to the exact same schedule studing then. I'm doing three podcasts every week, without regard to holidays or anything else. No days off, no shows off. Three podcasts every week to be released Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday, starting May first and running until.
The end of the year. And that's been the.
Way that I've done my career for the last few years. It's the way we did the podcast this year. It worked spectacularly well, and I've found, unlike say in radio or TV. Podcast listeners are used to this because most podcasts have seasons where they come and go. My season is just most of the year, eight months a year and then four months. Well, it's like a streaming series. It's the whole thing. And we will obviously have people who will fall out of the habit of listening because
I wasn't there. But there are zillions of podcasts that have been able to make this work. And we'll remind you that we're coming back and this.
Set and the other thing.
Now, Paul is not coming back to my podcast, but I think you do want to stress you're not retiring. In fact, one of the challenges we've had with the podcast, I think about fifty five percent of the old radio audience followed me to the podcast, and they have been replaced by a huge number of people who never or
rarely listened to the show on AM radio. Many of them are people who are not from the Wisconsin area who stumbled upon me by just stumbling onto podcasts, and we've heard from a lot of them who are not familiar with me prior to finding the program. And then there are other people from the Wisconsin area who just stopped thirty five forty years ago ever listening to am radio.
But they're all over podcasts worlded podcasters tend to people that are looking for certain podcasts find them and like on iheard, they'll say themes and people hear about it and then tons of word of mouth.
And so on.
But if that group that just and many of the are older people who think that finding a podcast is difficult, And as IF explained, it's like everything else. Once you do it, you realize it's incredibly simple. But until you do it, yeah, you know, you just do it once and it's the same. It was the same thing I said. Use the example I use all the time as Facebook. When Facebook came out, no older people were on it.
They none of them could figure out how you could possibly even do it, and they couldn't imagine why you would want to do it.
And Facebook now is only old people.
There's nobody in the age of fifty on face. I mean they can, but I mean I would be young if I was on face. So it's the same thing. Once you learn a technology, you're able to adopt it. But what I was going to say is one of the things that I face is there are many people who didn't follow me over who asked me what retirement is like.
So I'm retired.
In fact, I work virtually as much as I was doing in radio, one show less a week. The podcasts are a bit shorter, except when you consider my radio show had twenty three minutes or so of spots, newscast, traffic, promos, et cetera, whereas the podcast has only two minutes or two and a half minutes in addition to the little bit that the I Heart nationally pops into this. So the length the show isn't that much shorter when you take out all of that other thing, and it's one day a week less.
But I'm on the same.
Type of schedule and i do the same amount of show prep because I'm still looking for all the good things that I can possibly do. But people think that I've retired, and I think Paul probably wants to stress the people that you are not retiring. You don't want people to think that you're gone forever. If there is something you get to do, you get to talk, turn your microphone on. I'm figuring if people have asked me forever and ever and ever, why Paul has never talked
And first of all, it just started that. I want you know, Paul was not the first producer. We went through like three or four in the first year and they didn't talk. So Paul comes in, Well when I change that, And it's a good thing that the first three or four didn't talk, because none of them lasted, and so forth and so on, and it just became a device.
And I would say half the.
Talk show host who have producers, they don't talk and have to And Rush Limbaugh for example, he.
The guy that was playing bost nearly.
James Golden occasionally would talk toward the end, but hr Kick Carson, Whitefish Bay never spoke on the air, and so on. So it's done like half and half and half you and John why has found that it work? John Wyatt talked now that you just heard Paul's voice, which is the first time that it's ever happened. And this is a no risk thing for me because if you completely screw this up, I can say, good writtance,
You're never going to hear it again. Now, most people who are from Milwaukee know that Paul has been on the air with his voice on WYSN for decades. He does a number of the weekend shows he's done promos here and has spoken while as a producer of other programs.
And thirty five years. Actually thirty five years.
And I started in nineteen eighty nine. I think he started in nineteen eighty. So your years on the radio are the same as mine, because my radio years ended.
I said, you said I started in eighty. I started in ninete.
I did say ninety. No, I know, I said ninety. You just can't hear anymore. Maybe it was eighty. Well, I'm talking to this is what I nine. Paul started in ninety, so roughly because I my show had been on for about a year and part of the reason that we had there are part timers that were doing it and people that were going to college and so on, and people doing this.
That and the other thing, and just running through a lot.
So and Jerry Bot fired as a producer from Your Shot, was actually the very first producer and then he kind of moved up into management. Here we had Karen was the next producer. I don't know if she cares when wanting her last name mentioned or not, but she she was young, and she was in Marquette at the time, and she's going on and had she has a successful career.
She trained me.
We had a guy named Barry who did the show for a while.
He had numerous other jobs at WISN and then we had like two or three people who were just spot here and there, and then Paul came in and he's stuck and he lasted with it. So I just my own advice, based on my experience, is to not let people think that you're leaving or going anywhere. But what's happening all over radio is people are moving into other positions. Jay Webber has made the decision to do what I'm doing. He's taking The Winner off and is going to return
as a podcaster. He'll be doing two days a week rather than three. He's taking the Winner off as well as I am, and his podcast will be released on Tuesdays and Fridays and mine when Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, which has.
A rhythm to it. The station.
The company has not announced who my new producer is. I will say that it is somebody that the wis audio audience will be familiar with. It will unveil all of that on May first, but it will not be somebody foreign to the station, for.
They haven't even told me Mark so Paul.
So they haven't even told him, but I know who it is, but it is somebody that is affiliated with.
I'm sure your podcast will be successful, and.
Paul said, I'm sure. Well, I think there's a very good chance it'll be better. Well, well, we have no we have. I talked about the side by side comparison earlier on the program with regard to the h just don't let the new guy with regard Paul said, that'd be hilarious, but that would not be good with the side by side comparison to the cell phone abandons.
I have no side by side comparison.
Whether or not anybody better than you went through three or four people in the first year. Otherwise it's only been you.
Yeah, yeah.
David Michael's always claimed that he did a better job of producing the show than you did when he on the old radio.
There's no way.
He's sloppy, Paul, so that he's sloppy that there's no way on that. But you are now tell us what weekend shows.
You do or what are you doing?
And like I had, by the way, there's no gap on this that your these continue this coming week.
Oh yeah, not taking off.
So there's nothing happening with regard to Paul here at the end of the year, as opposed to me going on my normal winter hiatus. But my podcast is ending and it's the perfect time for us to make this flip over.
So which weekend shows do you do?
Yes?
And I've I started all of these shows. Mark, So Saturday the remodeling shows two hours. Then we go into a real estate show, Jeff Cohals retirement clinic, we do the designer yard show. I'm not boring you yet because you've all said these weekend self help shows.
People know what we do, right.
We sell the time to companies that pay for the show. They get commercials and then they do the programs.
Whase I infomercials, but they're not fully information educational.
They're not fully.
Informercials in that see most infomercials, nobody connected with the individual station does them. In the cases of the programs that we have, Jerry Bott does a couple of them. I think Paul hosts them, and it's identified as part of WISN. But there's a disclaimer put out at the beginning in the end that these are paid programs in which the advertisers are putting themselves out there, and they expose themselves to the audience and then offer the advice
and so on. And my guess is that they'll have you draft you into doing a couple of other things here at Wis.
In addition, I should thank you for all the cruising years because because of that Mark, I get to now have my own crew.
He's going to go, so his whole thing. This is why he couldn't talk. He's gonna go and take this thing. Now. Well, you can't plug your cruise because you'll leave in like five days or something.
There is one in twenty seven though, so stay tune, you know.
Yes, so he's been leading a cruise and people have asked you're ever going to do a cruise again. The one advantage that you have in not being married, as I am not and never have been, is I don't have to lock my feet and stow it on anything. I mean, I can change it, I maybe at some point in the future, but it was just something I did every year. Plus it was always something that I
did in the winter. Well, now the winner is the period of which I'm taking the break and I'm in Florida and just kind of have been there and done that, and we did that for over thirty years with Paul's now leading a cruise.
And where are you going this year?
Belize, Belieze close to Maya, Mexico, so it's a Caribbean cruise.
But are about the civil war that just started there today?
Now we're avoiding all of that time.
I just made that up. There's no civil war going on in Belize.
Next year to Lisbon, Portugal and Spain.
Portugal, all right, and that's enough plugging of your that's enough plugging of your cruise. Are you working with your wife in real estate or is that not.
Going No, she's the realtor.
But I am involved in some businesses that we own, like storage units I think you've talked about.
So he's been doing that and the other thing and keeping his three grand show grant. And the one thing I think Paul and I can both say, I've ended micro radio career but doing something very similar doing it for the same company I did radio, is we got into radio and what was close to the golden age of radio, and for a zillion reasons other than news talk stations like WYS and almost all of them are hurting for a zillion reasons and WISN, which had incredible
host stability. We had the great lineup for the longest time. There's now on transition because we're all hitting the same age. Jay's a little bit younger than me, but he's gone. Dan o'donald is you know, moved into my old radio shift this past year, and Benet will be taking over for Jay by hosting morning Drive. And I don't know that they've yeah, they've announced they have announced the replacement for Ben in the mid day program.
Yeah, Jason Gotch will be doing the match a day show from nine until eleven, and uh Vicky still on from two to three and then playing Buck in the middle of the day.
It's a good one.
So I mean, it's it's they continue to have a very very good lineup and so on, in addition to all of the other programs that are out there. I refused when I ended the radio program to do anything that was sappy whatsoever. And I'm banning Paul from saying anything sappy that was here. But Paul was obviously the most important part of the program that we had the entire time that was on and so on and the
so he's gonna he's not going anywhere. He's not retiring, and he wouldn't be on this podcast for four months anyway. And when I come back, there'll be a producer whose name will be announced that and again I know who it's going to be, but it has not been announced in general to the staff and all of that. So keep that hutched up again. Follow me on X and I may. I'll probably pop up on a couple of the radio shows around here and so on. If something comes up during I.
Should publicly thank you Mark for everything I see.
I mean, there are some people that are narcissists. I know that this sounds like I'm crowing. I am like the opposite of a narcissist. You are a part of that is generational. I mean way more our parents' generation had that.
I mean, I.
Know a fair number of people that served in World War Two and not a damn would have never wanted to. And I don't think it was just because of post traumatic stress and all of that.
They just didn't brag or bring up a thing.
They talk about it with their other buddies that were in the war and so on, and I just I mean I mentioned that the in all of the years I did radio, and all the years that I've done the podcast, the number of times that's somebody from management walked down the hallway after where I shows and said that was a really good show.
Never, it's less than five never.
But part of that is the air that I put off, like what do you want?
Why are you.
Telling me this?
So what I will stress when you're gone.
Though you do a great job on Twitter, which X it's a thing now, a thing daily tweet.
See now you keep saying that, I don't need to keep saying formally known as Twitter, but an incredible number of people still call it Twitter.
We do because it's either to say tweet, what do you say XT?
Well, I say post, and that's what I hear Musk say, and it's the term that he Musk uses and he runs the thing. But I was inactive on Twitter in part because before Musk bought it and renamed it views like mine, you'd be blocked and banned and et cetera. The reason that you now you can now can post on there. But secondly, when he's taking this hiatus for four months, it was away for me to keep putting my information out there on things. And thirdly, it became
a huge win. I didn't need to promote the show because you either knew about it or you didn't after all those years. But the podcast was a new thing. So every podcast that we do, I post on X is another way of being out there. But I mean, I still catch the whole problem when you put something like that in writing, that's out there for all the critics to see. You put one little thing out of context, or say one thing that somebody may deem offensive, and
it can be a career hunting kind of thing. It's it's a risky thing in which the sanctions still apply to people in the right far more than thee left. You have any other parting words? No more thank you? So any other parting words that you have? No just feel see as usual, very very little to say, which is why it was not on there on the first one.
What else? What were you saying? Feeling?
Your word transitioning and transitioning.
We're transitioning, not reciting. I think if I transitioned to a woman, I wouldn't.
Be bad looking.
You would be the ugliest woman that there ever could possibly be terrible.
I got a big nose.
First of all, have you ever seen anyone who did transition that.
Did look good.
Bruce Jenner likes Jenner slightly.
I hate to say that, but I mean he started as a good looking guy. You know what I'm saying, Well, he had to be a good looking guy. Look with you know all of these Kardashians, you know, and the last Kardashian was not the Kardashian that was his kid, but he married Missus Kardashian.
Or he was a a cathlete.
And so we've clearly run out of things to say, and indeed those will be the last words that you hear from me until May first. I don't to thank Paul for all of his contributions that we've made. And so when again the podcast returns May first, Paul isn't going anywhere. He'll still have a number of duties. And with that, we're out of time for this year. Season
number one was spectacular. I'm not announcing anything, but we are going to be making some formatic changes in the second season of the podcast.
And the way that we do it.
But I'm not going to announce anything until we come around and start doing it in May.
Talk to you then.
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